


Oblivion

by jeanjosten



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew meets his biological daughter, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Past Rape/Non-con, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 13:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14498259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeanjosten/pseuds/jeanjosten
Summary: From the Tumblr prompt:What if, and this is a dark thought, Andrew has a biological daughter from one of his experiences of sexual assault/rape as a teenager before Drake the “woman” who does it, drops the child at his feet and basically says “I dont want it.” And Andrew after all his fucked up past knows there’s no way he is letting something innocent, his blood and flesh, go through the foster system like he did so this is how Andrew has a five year old daughter.





	Oblivion

**Author's Note:**

> Have this weird ass, out of character, chronologically incoherent and totally not realistic Andrew meeting his daughter. In my head it happened a bit after canon. Andrew is 21 and moved in the Columbia house with Neil before graduation. [Listen with this because… everything’s better with Olafur](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmKkaCKWreM&feature=youtu.be).
> 
> [Original Tumblr post](https://wesninskids.tumblr.com/post/173467220567/what-if-and-this-is-a-dark-thought-andrew-has-a).

To a man who remembered everything, oblivion had always been a castle in the sky. Something frail, unattainable—just out of reach. Andrew Minyard, however, had mastered the art of selective memory from a young age. It wasn’t that he didn’t have room for it all, or that memories slowly faded day after day. Souvenirs had always been strange and spotless things, untouched, left unchanged in the meanders of his mind. But survival had always been the only thing to do and he knew there were no limits to the power of humanity.

Perhaps was it his body which had decided to shelter him from the trauma by slowly choking it. It had never disappeared, and it was still there, lingering underneath his skin—just silenced and disarmed enough to breathe. It was how people like him coped with shock, it was how they recovered from all they were told they would never.

In all possible ways Andrew Minyard was a miracle—a survivor—a forgetter out of necessity.

He should have known something was missing. But living—truly living—was so strangely preoccupying he had given up on his memories each day a little more, choosing future over past. Those he had so carefully concealed under thick layers of scar tissue were not supposed to come back to the surface. He had promised himself long ago they would never.

Someone knocked—hit, more so—and Andrew stared at the wall in far-off annoyance. Neil was still asleep, tangled in the sheets at his sides, his shirt wrinkled at the back. He glanced and rubbed his eyes, sitting upright on the bed as the mattress creaked under his weight.

Someone knocked again—hammered, more so—and Andrew gave up on avoidance. It could only get him that far.

He slid his armbands on and tugged at the hems, feeling up the familiar shape of his throwing knives. He had come to think, with enough time and repetition, those were parts of the things that made him feel grounded, that made him feel home. And when he opened the front door with a frown, he recognized the distinguishable feeling of being bothered where he should not be.

This was a safe place. This was home.

The woman stared and he stared back, until his eyes eventually dropped to the kid standing at her sides. She was held in place by her shoulders, fingers digging harshly enough that Andrew could feel his own flesh hurt in unforgiving muscle memory.

“Andrew,” she said, half a question.

“Yes,” he deadpanned, but nobody spoke.

It took a moment—but then he swallowed. He closed the door so violently he almost expected it to slam, but then a shoe slid in between and he stepped back in surprise, considering every possibility for a brief second. He could pull out his knife, or he could call the police, like Neil would probably advise him to. Then again, Neil had rarely given proper and solid advice, and he shut the door in a sharp breath. He heard a pained groan on the other side, and then the fists hammered the door again, almost as rapid as Andrew’s heartbeats.

“Andrew! Andrew open the door. It’s me.”

“I know it’s you,” he snapped, and turned his palms upwards to watch them tremble.

He wasn’t sure if it was shock and terror, or if it was the effort it took not to open the door and cut her in tiny pieces. He would skin her alive—oh, he would—but he closed his eyes and breathed in, still images of Neil’s sleeping body flashing behind his eyelids.

“Get out of here,” he yelled, and turned to check if Neil had woken up.

There were no sound but the woman breathing hard—or perhaps was it himself—and he rested his forehead against the door. After a moment he realized the woman had complied.

She’d looked tired and drained by the years, aging all but well, but he couldn’t forget a face like hers—strained with sternness and a lack of empathy, eyes so hollow and cold he sometimes thought were his own. In the end all his abusers had shaped him into the person he was, from his shaking fists to his wide, unforgiving eyes, blinking and blinking but never forgetting.

He waited a moment to open the door again. And when he did, he found the kid sitting on the front porch, knees to his chest, shyly turning his head his way as though too exhausted to move.

Andrew frowned. “Go home, kid.”

The child turned around, silent.

“Heard what I say? Go home,” he repeated, voice dropping too low to be friendly. He curled his fingers, ready to grab his blades if needed, but the crumpled form didn’t budge.

“I can’t.”

Andrew stared at the road a few feet away. There were no car but his Maserati, and the woman was long gone. “Why?” Nobody answered. “Why are you here?”

The child slowly turned, and Andrew searched his eyes for something familiar. He found something he wasn’t sure he wanted to see.

“Mommy said I could stay here.”

He frowned again, shoulders relaxing. The kid was harmless.

“Me?” He watched as he nodded. “But…” his voice trailed off before he could go on, losing focus as he stared at the abandoned child sitting on his front porch. It had logic to it, but he refused to do the math. Sometimes ignorance was the best thing he could hope for.

He didn’t even feel Neil appear at his sides, cautious enough not to surprise him, but sneaky enough to earn a frown. “Who is this?” Neil asked. “Do you know him?”

“I’m a girl,” the kid frowned, and Andrew and Neil shared a puzzled look.

“What is she doing there, Andrew?” Neil arched a brow, pulling on the hem of his t-shirt in discomfort. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good with kids; it was that the little girl’s forearm was badly bruised and for a moment he was back in his mother’s dusty car.

“How old are you?” Andrew asked, and Neil gave him a hollow look he didn’t acknowledge. He started to lose his patience when the girl gave no answer. “How old are you?”

“Six,” the girl said, and played with her fingers.

Andrew stepped back and dropped the handle.

“Andrew?”

He turned and rubbed his temple, lost. There was nothing to ask—nothing to search for. It was all there, buried somewhere in his memory, deep enough that he’d never think of ever unearthing it. His fingers shook but he made them into fists.

A glance at the girl was enough to decide. He shared a look with Neil and watched the redhead nod, calm as ever. Everything seemed to collapse around, but Neil—Neil was there, unmoving and unfazed, untouchable. He wondered how much he had seen that he had not yet told him about. He wondered if he wanted to know.

And then Neil’s eyes said something else—understanding. Of what Andrew had gone through and not shared, either. Of the things he had so carefully put aside and convinced himself weren’t there.

He let himself fall on the couch and watched in disconnect as Neil let the girl in and brought glasses of water. Neil sat down next to him and they exchanged a quick glance, not knowing what to do next. All Andrew knew was he couldn’t let that girl alone in the streets—he couldn’t let her go through what he had lived himself. It wasn’t cruelty, it was inhumanity, and he knew all about it.

And then… then he searched her eyes again, searching, desperately. They were green, a dark shade of green—but they were disinterested and sad, like she had lived this moment a thousand times.

Like she couldn’t be hurt more than she had been already.

“Where is your mother?” Neil asked.

“She left.” The girl looked around, inspecting the house as she fidgeted on her seat. “She said she had something to do and that you would take care of me now.”

For how long, Andrew thought, but didn’t ask. Those weren’t things a kid could answer. The weight of parenthood wasn’t something his foster parents were able to bear, and certainly not that woman. With her ashy blonde hair and her chainsmoker voice, she was everything he was bound to become—despite everything.

He refused.

“Do you know who I am?” Andrew tried. It was clumsy, as it always was when he spoke with children, but Neil watched with tender eyes. He’d always maintained Andrew was good with them—cautious and respectful, treating them like adults. He didn’t know why.

The girl shook her head.

“Well I’m…” he looked at Neil, but he only gave a saddened smile. He wasn’t going to tell Andrew what to do, he realized. “I’m Andrew.”

He decided she didn’t need to know.

Not yet.

He wasn’t ready.

Not yet.

“Hello,” the girl said, nodding in distant politeness. She hadn’t been taught manners, but she had been punished enough to know how to behave. Neil pushed the glass of water closer to her and smiled.

“I’m Neil.”

Andrew watched as she smiled back, fearful animal half-tamed already. Neil was like that. Awkward and unsure, but careful where he knew the boundaries were. He had been abused enough—kids like him, though they didn’t know what to do with children, knew what not to.

Neil didn’t know how to make them happy—but he knew how to avoid them pain and loneliness.

Andrew examined her in silence. She was tiny for her age, meek and bruised, damaged like Andrew had once been. He checked her wrists in a glance but found nothing but red marks where her mother had mercilessly grabbed her. He frowned at the thought, lingering a little longer than he should have.

He’d only been fourteen.

And it was complicated—all of this.

But this beaten flesh was his own, and he’d let that happen. Where he should have been repulsed, he was only guilty. He should have known.

“What’s your name?”

“Heather.” She tried another smile, but Andrew’s eyes were cold as they always were, and she didn’t know what to expect out of it. Andrew realized she was bracing for pain.

Then Neil’s fingers snaked their way to his and pulled, gently squeezing him back to reality. He relaxed, breathed in—and nodded.

“You are safe now, Heather,” he said. The name felt weird on his tongue—foreign and heavy—like a responsibility he wasn’t sure he could hold. It wasn’t like he had a choice. “You are safe.”

He met Neil’s eyes, and he knew she was going to be fine.

They were going to be fine.


End file.
